Carps Elbow

[Leeyat]

Thank God! Best news of the day.

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[Fat_Bulldog]

Hopefully Carp can come back and stay healthy. Problem is, his elbow is going to have to be cleaned out at some point or another. Hopefully they can do it in the offseason.

Any word on Mulder? Having him and Carp healthy in the rotation would be a huge plus as much as Wainy, Reyes and Kip have been struggling.

[Michael]

From BP:

Matthew Leach is one of those writers that makes my job really easy. Among a great group of writers in St. Louis that includes Bernie Miklasz and Derrick Goold, Leach often simply just does my job for me or reduces me to merely linking to him. As you'll see in his article, the Cardinals got some good news on Chris Carpenter—it appears that rest is working. The big test, how his elbow would react after throwing from the mound, was passed. Now, Carpenter will begin working in earnest towards a return. The important thing to remember here is that the chips are still in his elbow. Like dice in craps, if they roll wrong, Carpenter will be back at square one, or rather back on an operating table to have them removed. Carpenter is on track to throw a couple of times this week, and then the normal move would be to go to the minors for a start or two. Since Carpenter is so important to the Cards and because each pitch he throws is risky, I would not be a bit surprised if he went right back into the rotation on a low pitch count instead of wasting those pitches on a minor league rehab assignment.

Link

[businessmansspecial]

Shannon just said on KTRS that if he has no swelling today, you can pencil him in for next Tuesday.

[jim]

From BP:

I'm not exactly sure what the difference is between "throwing to teammates" and batting practice is, but the Cardinals writers all seemed to make a point of it in discussing Chris Carpenter's progress on Tuesday. Carpenter did make it through this 'teammate' session without any problem, but as always the real test will be how his elbow comes out of it the following day. If Carpenter comes into the training room without problems, the Cardinals will then have the interesting decision of how to bring him back. The first step will be a simulated game, perhaps as early as Thursday, an off day for the Cards. After that, the fork in the decision tree comes--do they send Carpenter to the minors for a start, or put him on a strict pitch count and bring him right back into the big league rotation? The latter is actually the preferable option, if not the conservative one, though the decision will be made in large part by how the team's braintrust feels about their situation. The Cardinals are in last place in the division, only a couple out from second, but 6.5 games behind the streaking Brewers. We'll have learned a lot by next week, and more about the Cardinals' current state of mind.